the region were laid in a straight line, a person could drive from Sudbury to Vancouver. Cutting-edge technology continued to extract more and more ore from the generous meteor that had formed the enormous seventeen-by-thirty-seven-mile elliptical basin nearly two billion years ago.
Half an hour later, as the sun weakened in the western sky, casting glints through the poplars, maples and birch overhanging her road, the first pure crimson leaf in the canopy of green struck her like a gunshot. This blow signalled the beginning of autumn, which normally she greeted with expectation. September, free of bugs and full of show, was the most beautiful month of the year. Now it was a metaphor for Bea’s death, and the difference was that the cherished mother and wife would not return like Persephone in the spring. She parked at the DesRosiers’, leaving Freya in the van. A reluctant messenger, she needed to steel herself. As minutes passed, all the vacuous phrases chattered in her mind like parrots. “Sorry for your loss.” “Gone to a better place.” Even “only the good die young.” She didn’t envy Steve his former job ringing doorbells after gruesome traffic accidents.
“Knock, knock,” she called, then opened the door in their casual fashion. Hélène was ensconced in a leather recliner, snug in the Norwegian sweater Belle had given her for Christmas. In the open-concept kitchen, Ed wore an Old-Fart-On-Duty apron over his sweatpants and was peeking into the oven. Savory tomato aromas filled the house. She felt strangely hungry for the first time all day, perhaps a response to the survival instinct . . . or the absence of breakfast and lunch. That coffee was churning acid in her nether regions. So Dave hadn’t paved the way. She could hardly blame him. Micro would be his first concern.
Hélène put down a magazine and snickered. “Ladies’ night off. It’s only been forty years. I’m finally breaking Ed in. He cannot ruin M&M cabbage rolls. Posilutely not, as my grandson says.”
They’d never ask her why she had arrived unannounced shortly before dinner time. With the camaraderie on the road, it might be to borrow dog kibble or ask for a battery boost.
Ed winked and mimed a beer at Belle, who nodded. Opening the fridge, he retrieved a bottle of light beer, twisted the cap, and handed it to her as she took off her jacket.
Hélène cleared her throat. “No glass, Ed? This isn’t an ice hut.”
Sitting on the sofa, Belle took a deep swallow, wondering if they could hear the drum beating in her chest. “It’s fine. I’m a minimalist.”
As Ed headed back to the kitchen, Hélène grinned at Belle. “You always said that ‘Kept a sparkling house’ wasn’t what you wanted on your tombstone and that at your place, dog hair was a condiment.” She rocked back with laughter, then touched Belle’s knee. “You are staying, then? I have some rye from the breadmaker.”
Liquid rye would have been her choice. Belle finished her beer in three nervous gulps and leaned forward, her stomach lurching. How she dreaded casting pain and sorrow across her friend’s relaxed and innocent brow. She stared out their wall of windows to the lake, where a sailboat headed for harbour, its white sides lashed with spray as it parted the bruised waves. She bit her lip until it hurt, then turned to Hélène and opened her mouth, but no words came. Suddenly she had the urge to burp and took off for the bathroom, closing the door and turning on the taps before she knelt at the toilet like a college freshman after a binge, its chemically-charged bowl green and deep. Normally she enjoyed the apple pie aroma of the three-wick dish candle on the shelf, but now it increased her nausea.
When she returned, Hélène gave her a curious look but was too polite to comment. She passed Belle a Chatelaine. “Take this home. Great article about snowshoeing. You could have written it. Now there’s easy money.”
Belle held out her hand, but Hélène lowered the magazine. “You’re shaking. What’s wrong? Low blood sugar? Did you skip lunch?”
Get the words out. Like the headline of an ad. Details to come. “I have bad news. It’s about Bea.”
Hélène’s mouth pursed in disappointment as she picked up a glass of red wine from the side table. “Darn. She decided not to sell? I knew she wouldn’t leave that wonderful old house. And that reminds me. It’s her birthday Saturday, and I haven’t—”
Belle took a deep breath and plunged on. Swift strokes were kinder than a death of a thousand cuts. “Bea’s dead. I found her upstairs when I took clients over.”
Hélène’s glass shattered, its contents pooling like rubies on the creamy tilework Ed had laid on the woodstove platform. “My God. Was it her heart? I gave her that low-cholesterol cookbook last Christmas . . . oh, why didn’t she—”
“It was murder.” She sat back on the couch, felt its cushions enfold her. “Like the others, it seems. She didn’t live alone. Who would have thought?”
Hélène buried her head in her hands. Belle gently touched her shuddering back. A competent and resourceful woman, suddenly her friend seemed older and more vulnerable.
“Ed,” she called, “Hélène needs you.”
“What’s the matter, girl?” he asked as he came over, searching Belle’s face for answers. Then Hélène stood and embraced her husband.
Belle related the news in the briefest possible fashion, omitting the graphic particulars. “Thank God Micro wasn’t there,” Hélène said, calming as the minutes passed, and the steel in her backbone stiffened. Her eyes were red and puffy, but she turned to the task at hand with no hesitation. “I’m calling Dave first, then everyone else. The shock of it all. He has no other family but us. His parents died years ago, and he was an only child. Like Bea.”
While Hélène went to get her address book, with paper towels, Belle cleaned up the spilled wine. One chipped tile, a reminder that nothing is permanent. She cut her finger on a shard of glass and went off to find a bandage in their medicine cabinet. Kid style. With hearts. She wondered if this horror would bond the boy to his stepfather as they grieved together and started a new life.
As Hélène dialled numbers, a box of Kleenex at her side, with no more words for sorrow, Ed passed Belle a Tupperware package of cabbage rolls and a hunk of warm rye bread. She drove slowly down the long dark road, determined to use her friendship with Steve to provide her friends with answers to this tragedy. First thing in the morning, he’d find her message on his answering machine at the department.
SIX
Lunch day with Father found Belle at Bobby’s Place, a Garson institution, which changed names as each brave owner tried to scratch a living from a limited custom in the tiny suburb. Their hot-beef-sandwich platters gave the waitresses chronic lumbago, and they made a tasty back-bacon sandwich on a ciabatta bun laced with honey mustard. Since his near-death choking experience, George Palmer was limited to a special order of minced chicken with mashed potatoes, gravy and peas. “No charge this time,” said the young owner, a muscular blond with a huge, gleaming set of teeth as pearly as his apron. “I like the way you take care of your dad.” She had a hard time believing the local gossip that Bobby had a rape charge pending, except that his front window kept getting smashed. Bobby was the nicest guy, and not all women were trustworthy. Perhaps some spurned girlfriend had decided to take revenge.
After picking up the meal, she drove the few blocks to Rainbow Country Nursing Home, its former bachelor apartments converted for an aging population. Class-conscious perfectionists found it worn at the edges, but unlike the institutional high rises that catered to townfolk warehousing Oma and Opa, the compact facility had only sixty seniors and matchless personal care. Along with most developed
